


Breaking Point

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 12:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The keeping of secrets and the denial of truth proves fatal to all parties involved -- and a life that would never see the light of day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Point

Rain in Kirkwall. Rain scattering the pools of half-congealed blood, washing it into the gutters, washing the stench from the streets. Rain in the Chantry’s courtyard, cleansing the soot-thick air of the distant scent of burning bodies, snuffing out the small pockets of flame that still lingered. Rain in Lowtown, mingling with the tears spilled by families torn asunder and lovers separated by Death’s indifferent scythe.  
And rain in the Gallows, pinging lightly off Meredith’s armour, muffling the sounds coming from inside the Templar Hall — but not cooling the fever that burned in her cheeks and deep within her.

The Champion still fought, and Meredith’s army still waited — Cullen stood just behind her, and she could feel the anticipation vibrating off him. First word Hawke spoke against his Knight-Commander, and he’d surge forward with a hand on the hilt of his sword, a snarl in his tone as he upbraids her for her insolence. A good and loyal Knight-Captain, Cullen was.  
But she’d seen the way he looked at her, the uncertainty in his expressive gaze, when she railed against the First Enchanter. As if he saw something there, something in the fervent gesticulating and impassioned hissing that hinted at the truth.

It was in everyone’s best interests that she appear to hate First Enchanter Orsino, because the truth would destroy them all.

At first it was the black fever that brought them closer than they should have been — Meredith flushing florid and hot whilst shivering violently, snapping irritably at the mage when he came to lay hands upon her, bathe her in unctions, make sure she was fed. He’d recoil slightly at her barbs, but continue his work, his large elf’s eyes carefully veiled, his lips slightly parted as he concentrated on the pulsing glow from his hands and the feverish flesh that slowly but surely responded to it.  
When the fever would break, days later, the relief in her would be so palpable that she’d treat him civilly, almost genially — remaining still and compliant instead of flinching away from his touch, asking him questions about his life, his work, _him_. And maybe sometimes Orsino would smile uncertainly at her because of some glib comment, the smile disappearing as quickly as it came, as if afraid to give her this little thing — yet another little thing she could use against him later.

The newly-christened First Enchanter, simply doing his duty to the woman who would soon command his leash-holders.

But that wasn’t all, was it? He’d come when she was well, under the pretense of _checking in_ — fingers trembling as he hands over some trifle that he picked up from one of the Hightown vendors, something casual enough to be a mere _thinking of you_ gift and yet why would he be thinking of her at all? And she’d watch him as he paced grooves in her floor, explaining himself too many times, those fingers twitching in front of him as if trying to pull the words out of the air itself. She watched those fingers a lot.  
He came calling once in the heat of summer — slicked-back hair limp with the humidity, the hollows in his cheeks seeming hollower, his waterlily-and-parchment scent baked into his summer robes by now — and Meredith greeted him in a shift, her hair down and pooling over her shoulders, a sour expression etched into her features — she’d never liked heat, and least of all Kirkwall heat, which seemed ten times hotter.   
And Orsino had faltered, flushing, murmuring something about making sure she was drinking enough because the heat would surely only aggravate the fever and bring it on quicker and he’d bring her herbs for cold-brew if she desired and—

“Aren’t you burning up in that?” she asked brusquely, gesturing to his robes, and it's all too true that sometimes the most torrid affairs can have the most benign of beginnings.

She was Knight-Commander then, and he’d grown comfortable in his role then, and they snarled at each other from behind their respective fences during the day — but at night, they snarled at each other from behind the same fence, Meredith’s hand cracking against the line of his jaw in a brisk slap before she digs her fingers into his chin and kisses him, Orsino’s fingers turning into talons and raking furious furrows across her abdomen, her spine, the backs of her thighs.

Orsino had a fever then, too. But his was incurable so long as she remained just within reach, and just out of reach all the same.

He whispered anxious, fervent words under the cover of velvet night, but she turned away, unwilling to hear, unwilling to _know_.  
At the end of the night, at the dawn of the day, she was still Knight-Commander, and she brooked the insolence of no mage — whether that insolence be in the course of politics or in the breaking of a sexual affair’s rules.

“Let me care for you,” and Meredith said no.  
“All I want is you,” and Meredith turned her head.  
“I’ll give you all I have,” and Meredith wanted none of it.

But what had she now? Now, as rain washed away the blood and sweat in the Gallows, as her army waits restlessly behind her and an ill-gotten sword burns viciously at her back. Now, as her stomach churns with more than just fury and anxiety — she’d been sick every morning without fail for the past month and a fortnight, not to mention she hadn’t bled and parts of her were more tender than usual, and no one had to _tell_ Meredith what any of it meant.

“Let me care for you,” and perhaps Meredith might have allowed it.  
“All I want is you,” and perhaps Meredith might have admitted a similar sentiment.  
“I’ll give you all I have,” and perhaps Meredith might have responded in kind, even if no one else could know.

But then the explosion had lit up the partly-cloudy sky, and Kirkwall had erupted in war.  
There was no time. No time to explain. No time to rectify. No time to surrender. Only time to strap on armour and wage war against the one man she’d rather _lay down arms_ for.

“The Champion,” Cullen whispers harshly, pointing towards the heavy double doors, and Meredith is jerked back to the present, her eyes snapping towards the opening doors.  
Hawke was a mage, a snappish and demanding one at that, and Meredith had hated her as expected — but when her eyes flicked to the black, three-headed staff in the woman’s hands, that hate flared clearer and larger than that explosion that had lit up the partly-cloudy sky.

“Where is he,” Meredith Stannard — not the Knight-Commander, but the woman — hissed as she surged forward, her hand already reaching for the pulsing lyrium sword. Her abdomen cramped, and the clutching sensation darted upward into that swiftly-beating organ that she’d so readily ignored before now. The hiss flared into a scream. “ _Where is he!_ ”

Hawke threw the Staff of Violation at her feet, and Meredith lost it.


End file.
